Blog Entries tagged 'Editors Column'

Giving youth its due

bstreeter — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 01:00:00 +0100

There’s a lot to be said for experience. It’s not overrated. But for a minute or two, we’d like to point out that youth is sometimes underrated by those who are, shall we say, no longer young. The youth we’re talking about here are a group of six bankers—all CEOs or close to it. They were selected for the story about “Next-generation bank leaders” that you can read beginning on page 16. They’re all under 50. Youth is relative, and less a [...]

Wonderful life or strange world?

bstreeter — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 01:00:00 +0100

You couldn’t have scripted a starker contrast than two presentations at ABA’s National Conference for Community Bankers last month. In his keynote address, Bill Grant, CEO of First United Bank & Trust, Oakland, Md., and chairman of ABA’s Community Bankers Council, used the classic 1940s movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, to deliver a message that character, courage, and service are as fundamental as ever to what community banking is all about.

Just [...]

Don�t handcuff judgment

bstreeter — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0100

The thing that most frustrates bankers about the overlapping realms of regulation and supervision is not the compliance part, difficult as that is. It’s the usurping of their judgment. Unnecessary rules and inflexible assessments hand over judgment to the keepers of the rules, so that even when there is wiggle room, bankers’ hands are tied.

This frustration comes out in this month’s cover profile of community banker Bill Grant, CEO of First United B [...]

Regulation is not ethics

bstreeter — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:00:00 +0100

At a holiday party last month, an acquaintance asked a pointed question about banks. A well-informed person, she was aware of banks’ arguments that overregulation was keeping them from making loans, but she was somewhat skeptical of that argument. When told that indeed such was the case, she responded: “Well, how can banks be made to act ethically without regulations?”

It was a brief conversation, but we made two points in response:

1. Ban [...]

Strength in matchsticks

bstreeter — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 01:00:00 +0100

Everyone nods when speakers promote industry unity. Working together makes sense. Unfortunately, the emotional pull of “We’re different” can overpower the intellectual argument, at least for a time.

A good counter to that pull is experience—seeing first-hand that unity and cooperation work while butting heads doesn’t.

Also useful is seeing how, despite differences, people can have much in common. ABA’s “Dec [...]

If Steve Jobs had run a bank�

bstreeter — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 01:00:00 +0100

…would you have heard a peep about fees? This was the man who got the world to stop ripping off the “greedy music companies” and to pay for songs downloaded from the Apple iTunes store instead. His company also charged top dollar for its products, which were nevertheless eagerly snapped up by millions. He and his shareholders became quite wealthy in the process.

Despite that, the protesters banging drums in parks around the world would, we suspect, hav [...]

Use it, or lose it

bstreeter — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 01:00:00 +0100

“Not everyone thinks they are cut out for political involvement.” That’s the opening line of a box in this month’s cover story (p. 30). It’s true enough as far as it goes. Not everyone is cut out for a singing career, either, or for being a Navy Seal. You need to be able to carry a tune for the first, and be able to swim and be willing to fight for the second.

But for many things in life, you don’t really know how suited you are until [...]

Much done, much to do

bstreeter — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 01:00:00 +0100

If you were accused of something you didn’t do, would you stand mute, or refute the allegation? The answer should be obvious. “Truth will out” doesn’t mean one shouldn’t do everything possible to assist the process.

So it is with banks’ reputation. The lead item in Bank Notes (p. 16) reports that the 11-month-old effort to rebuild that reputation, led by ABA Chairman Steve Wilson, has made progress. Many [...]

Death by a thousand regs

bstreeter — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 01:00:00 +0100

It’s not like banks didn’t know this was coming. Still, all the stories about the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act have made it abundantly clear that an onslaught of new rules and regulations has begun. Many of the 3,000 new Federal Register pages written so far to implement pieces of the law have dealt with the more arcane areas of financial services not directly related to traditional banking. But that will soon change.

An excess of [...]

Double whammy

bstreeter — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 01:00:00 +0100

The marketplace shows no mercy. It can’t—it doesn’t work that way. That fact is often lost on policymakers as they deliberate laws, rules, regs, advisories, and sundry other means to make people and organizations do what they think ought to be done. That attitude has become critical for two reasons: 1. government involvement in business is at a modern high and rising, and 2. the speed of change in business has rarely been greater.

“Y [...]

Fair warning�it won�t work

bstreeter — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 01:00:00 +0100
A year ago, consultant Jo Ann Barefoot did the industry a service in her cover story on the emergence of “UDAP”—unfair and deceptive acts and practices—as a broadly applied standard by which banks would be measured. Since then, UDAP has been incorporated into the bank regulatory regime in a big way. The Dodd-Frank Act expanded it by adding the word “abusive” (making it UDAAP) and created a new agency to enforce it: the Consumer Financial Protection [...]

Avoid the size trap

bstreeter — Sun, 01 May 2011 01:00:00 +0100
Big banks, big unions, big government, big business. Each of those terms has come to be a pejorative.

That is slippery slope.

Equally dangerous is the attitude that small companies are “Mom and Pop” operations—that nothing really innovative comes from them, except maybe in Silicon Valley.

Bunk to both notions. The United States is big. It grew to be the world’s largest economy by being successful. The country [...]

Why overdraft is such a big deal

bstreeter — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 01:00:00 +0100
Sheila Bair was incredulous when a banker questioned the need for FDIC’s overdraft guidance. Only 40% of banks use automated “robo overdraft” programs, the FDIC chairman pointed out. The rest of the industry is already doing what the guidelines recommend, she said, namely counseling people who have a problem with overdrafts—defined as those who incur six or more per year.

Bankers want to know: Who is counseling regulators who have forgotten wh [...]

We could use a few more �control types�

bstreeter — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 01:00:00 +0100
Sometimes you come across important principles in unexpected places. In the lead story in this month’s ABA Resources, for example, Laura Fisher, who runs the ABA Education Foundation, talks about the foundation’s Teach Children to Save Day. In her response to a question about the program’s impact, she says, “Teaching kids to save is a great opportunity to teach them self-control. And self-control tends to be more important than self-confidence in terms of a person& [...]

This just in: people still matter

bstreeter — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 01:00:00 +0100
Call us retro if you want, but we were pleased to note several references in articles in this issue to the importance of people. A useful reminder in our digitally-obsessed world.

The first reference that caught our attention was a line in the case study on page 16 about a community bank’s success in wealth management. Asked what the bank’s secret was, David Maynard, director of wealth management at Southern Community Bank & Trust, repli [...]

Don�t shrug off bad image

bstreeter — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0100
The low state of banking’s image came home to Ohio banker Bick Weissenrieder about a year ago. He and his wife were attending a reception among a travel group of which they were a part. People were making pleasant conversation, and someone turned to Weissenrieder and said, “Bick, what do you do?”

“I’m a community banker,” he replied. Dead silence fell over the group.

“I’ve never had that happen befo [...]

Changing of the guard

bstreeter — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 01:00:00 +0100
“Didn’t we just do this?” said ABA’s chief, lowering his tall frame into a chair in his office in that familiar semi-slouched position. Yes, actually, we did just do this—“this” referring to an interview—but the subject of that earlier session, we reminded him, was about the Dodd-Frank Act. This one was for an article about him, now that he’s leaving ABA. “Oh, yes,” he recalled, with an air of resignation. It was the end of [...]

Forget Japan, what are we doing?

bstreeter — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 01:00:00 +0100
Ever since the economic recovery lost steam a few months ago, there has been much discussion about whether the U.S. is repeating the Japanese experience. After that Asian country’s stock and real estate bubbles burst, it has not been able to regain its economic mojo—struggling with deflation and slow growth for 20 years.

By Bill Streeter, Editor-in-Chief, bstreeter@sbpub.com

You can learn from others’ experiences, but compariso [...]

Scratch that niche?

bstreeter — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 01:00:00 +0100

There’s an interesting byplay in this issue involving the question of whether to specialize or be a generalist. That question has been kicking around banking for decades, with sometimes one, now the other view having ascendancy. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, specialization—or nichemanship—retreated, with traditional community banking enjoying a renaissance.

By Bill Streeter, Editor-in-Chief, bstreeter@sbpub.com

One foot on a slippery slope

bstreeter — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:00:00 +0100
There was a popular book a few years ago titled, “The Death of Common Sense,” by Phillip Howard. A good sequel would be, “The Death of Integrity.”

By Bill Streeter, Editor-in-Chief, bstreeter@sbpub.com

Integrity, in the sense of honoring one’s obligations and responsibilities, is a quality that Americans have long admired and, to varying degrees, strived for. Unfortunately, we’ve been seeing an er [...]